Pages

Friday, January 18, 2013

Ethiopian Airlines grounds Boeing 787 Dreamliners as precaution

Following the directive of the US Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA), Ethiopian Airlines decided to temporarily pull its Boeing
787 Dreamliners out of service for precautionary inspection on Thursday,
January 17, 2013, according to a press release by Ethiopian Airlines.

The US FAA issued a directive on January 16, 2013 mandating
operators to perform special inspection requirements on the Dreamliner airplane
battery system, the release stated. This directive was issued following recent
incidents that occurred on Dreamliner airplanes operated by two other airlines.

The Airline said its Dreamliners have not encountered the
type of problems such as those experienced by the other operators, but it has
decided to pull out its four Dreamliners from operation and perform the special
inspection requirements mandated by the US FAA as an extra precautionary safety
measure.

The airline has been operating the Dreamliner since
mid-August last year. Ethiopian Dreamliners have been performing well in the
five months service logging record length of non-stop flights and record high
daily aircraft utilization in the industry. Since it first received the
Dreamliner, Ethiopian has logged 5,560 flight hours with average daily aircraft
utilization of 14 hours.

The Airline said it is working closely with Boeing to comply
with the US FAA approved special inspection procedure on the battery system and
perform the maintenance as per the directive. The airline aims to return the
Dreamliners to service as soon as possible, after full compliance with the new
procedure.

Ethiopian is the first African and the third airline in the
world to operate Boeing 787 Dreamliner.